Friday, October 07, 2016

New President, Same Old War

It was George w. Bush's war for nearly 7-years and Barack Obama's war for the next 8. Soon, America's longest running cluster f#@k will become a new president's war, probably Hillary Clinton's.

What a load of "firsts." The first American war to run longer than 15-years. The first American war with a black Commander in Chief. The first American war with a woman as Commander in Chief. The first American war that seems to have no discernable exit. America's first true PermaWar?

How many generations of Americans will be able to call the Afghan war their own? There may well be Americans in uniform in Afghanistan today who had one or more parents or even grandparents in uniform there when this fiasco was launched.

Whether it's Hillary or the Orange Behemoth sworn in next January, Afghanistan will become their Gordian Knot. 15 years has shown that all the King's horses and all the King's men cannot decide the issue in that barren countryside.

Meanwhile the security situation in Afghanistan grows steadily worse. The Taliban are resurgent. No one seems to be able to stop them except perhaps for the newcomer to that forbidding land, the Islamic State. The Talibs are already fighting ISIS for control of a few Afghan regions. Meanwhile the fate of Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal right next door virtually guarantees that America won't pull out of South Asia.

If ISIS develops into a credible threat to Afghanistan and/or Pakistan, crazy as it sounds, it's not inconceivable that the U.S. might find it necessary to throw in its lot with the Talibs.

Neocons like Bush, Obama and Clinton wage war because the military industrial complex pays them kickbacks. Fact is the more terrorism spreads throughout the region, the more bombs they get to drop which come at about a million bucks a pop. (The fancy short-lived guidance systems fund a hell of a lot of speeches.)

Trump plans on unwinding US "interventionism" and free trade deals because he believes that all the money he can save from military spending and trade deficits (which deplete GDP and increase the budget deficit) can be plowed in to tax cuts for the rich.

Interesting how "progressives" are hysterically in favor of bombing more Muslims, waging more war, and outsourcing more jobs.

Trump is probably on the lower end of the scale of racist Republicans. Certainly not nearly as racist as Hillary "super predator" Clinton who kicked off "the era of mass incarceration" for payola from the private prison industry.

Liberals are being played by the establishment. What exactly is their goal? To prevent a racist US president? That horse bolted with Nixon. Most presidents since him have used racist dog whistles to prey on the fears of White America. The Clintons exceptionally.